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Friday, August 30, 2013

LEGO Star Wars 9496 Desert Skiff set Review!


I saw this at Toys R Us a couple weeks ago and figured it would be good to pick up since I had recently reviewed Jabba's Sail Barge, plus this set was pretty cheap.  The end results were very unusual for me, as I actually ended up liking the set for the minifigures more than anything!

Mega Bloks Halo 2013 Comic-Con exclusive Spartan


While I've almost gotten caught up with my backlogged LEGO reviews, there are still quite a number of items in the Mega Bloks queue.  Today's focus is minifigs, starting with this very nice exclusive:
I also have more mystery pack openings for you all, so check that out.  One more video to go before I finish up series 7!

Thursday, August 29, 2013

Video: Three LEGO trains running in my LEGO City!


It's a happy day for me as my all-custom narrow-gauge Power Functions RC elevated light rail (what a mouthful!) setup is finally running a full loop around what will some day be a LEGO city!
Assume everything you see is incomplete, under construction, out of place, or otherwise temporary. Shell station is new, never before shown, and not complete.  Tower of Orthanc will not be in the city in any way.  Trains will have stops/stations of course. Etcetera :)  I just wanted to share this joyous little occasion.  There's still a ton of work to be done!

Wednesday, August 28, 2013

Mega Bloks Halo Jungle Cyclops & Banshee Blue Series reviews


Two more current Mega Bloks Halo reviews for y'all, one a Target Exclusive and one a mech. Honestly, who doesn't like mechs?

Bricklink Haul 8/27/2013

This was a haul that left me with a *lot* of work to do in its wake!  Hopefully I'll be able to show how it all goes together soon!

LEGO City 2013 Advent Calendar set review!


Last week I showed the LEGO Star Wars Advent Calendar for 2013, so now here's the City series version of the same.  It follows the same basic design & presentation formula and gives us figures that can be used around a whole LEGO city and especially within a happy holiday home.  Enjoy!

Another Mega Bloks Halo Series 7 mystery pack video


Another Mega Bloks Halo series 7 bag here, or will it be more than one?  I will tell you this, I find something relatively uncommon...

Monday, August 26, 2013

LEGO Star Wars Corporate Alliance Tank Droid set review + bonus!


This wraps my very first big batch of LEGO Star Wars set reviews. Let me know if you want to see more in the future!
Today's bonus?  Meh, just another Bricklink haul :)

Minecraft, anyone?


In my very first "vlog" video, I publicly asked if folks wanted to see my very simple and casual Minecraft world.  I've noted in Minecraft-themed LEGO videos before that I played the Xbox version a bit, and based on your enthusiastic feedback, I've posted a series of walk-through videos on my personal YouTube channel:

Friday, August 23, 2013

LEGO Star Wars 2013 Advent Calendar Review!


Merry Christmas everyone... even though it's August!  I never imagined the season's LEGO advent calendars would be released so soon, but here's the Star Wars one for ya!
City advent calendar review to come!

Thursday, August 22, 2013

LEGO Monster Fighters 9462 The Mummy set review, plus bonus


I went for something a little different this time, with a theme I haven't touched before.  I don't know if I'll do more Monster Fighters sets, but my reason for getting this one was very specific :)
The bonus this time? Yet another Bricklink haul!

Mega Bloks Halo 97159 Blue Series Rockethog, with bonus


This Mega Bloks Halo Warthog set delivered a positive building experience and a nice final product for a price I felt was fair. It even came with all of its pieces ;)
The bonus this time?  Another Series 7 Halo mystery pack opening :)

More LEGO custom vehicle MOCs


Nothing too exciting here, just a handful of new vehicles to help populate my city's fairly empty streets!

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

Mega Bloks fiasco mini-update

I was just notified by email that some parts are in the mail for my three sets that were missing them.  It has been a little over a week since I filed my requests with customer service, and if I receive these parts by the end of this week or thereabouts I will feel satisfied with how that whole process has gone.  I will keep you all posted and also put up a video when the parts come in so you can visually see just the incredible mass of parts I was missing.

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Queue update!

Over the past 30 hours or so I have uploaded 13 more videos to YouTube.  That leaves just 11 already-filmed videos in my backlog, with now just 14 videos worth of materials waiting to be filmed.  This is huge progress since my last update!  With ever more time freeing up, this week I've started picking out parts to build the gas station & auto repair shop for my city :)

See the full version of this post for the ever-changing listing of what remains to be done as of this moment.  Some of you may notice I've removed all previously-announced Kre-O Transformers series items, including sets & figures that were already purchased, built, and filmed. Sorry, but I found that Transformers fans were just too brutally snobby on the first videos I did from this franchise.  Since I was trying these products strictly for the viewers and not out of my own interest, I've decided to put that entire theme behind me and use my time to focus on other things that I enjoy!

LEGO Star Wars 75002 AT-RT set review, plus a bonus!


There were really quite a few LEGO Star Wars sets in the final Summer 2013 release wave.  I bought all of them at once at my "local" LEGO store, three huge bags stuffed full, but I've taken my time releasing them so as not to overwhelm folks and trigger dramatic upheaval about how "all you ever do is Star Wars anymore!"  Keeping the video order a little randomized seems to keep worries at bay, so I'll just keep this up!
Did I say there would be a bonus?  Oh yeah, I did!  Alright then, here's a series 9 minifig opening video for ya :)

LEGO Ninjago Golden Dragon 70503 set Review!


This is only my second Ninjago set review, and a much more substantial set it is than the last.  This one includes the sleek golden dragon plus one additional assembly and three minifigs.

Monday, August 19, 2013

Mega Bloks Halo ONI REAP-X set reviews: Siege Bike & Light VTOL



Two new small vehicles in Mega Bloks' non-canon ONI REAP-X line for 2013 here:
What do you think about the prices of these?  I feel like they're taking advantage of their success with the Halo line a bit too much and hiking prices up a bit too far now.  On a price-per-part basis, these are more expensive than most LEGO sets, which to me doesn't feel right since Mega Bloks parts quality still consistently lags behind the king from Denmark.

LEGO Friends 41013 Emma's Sports Car set review!


Here's one of the smaller, cheaper, and also more recent LEGO Friends set releases, just hitting the market in the US this month.

LEGO Hero Factory MOC: Specimen 5b


What do you get when you mix an alien bull-buffalo with a giant praying mantis?  Well, I don't know what you get, but this is what "the mad scientist" got on his second try!
As a bonus for today, here's a Bricklink haul for ya:

Mega Bloks Halo Series 7 mystery pack - Active Camo FOUND!


Hello, Monday!  I thought I'd start off this week on an especially positive note.  This blind bag opening was filmed weeks ago, but it shows in real time my first ever find of an active camo figure!  I don't check codes or feel around in bags to give myself an unfair advantage over everyone else, picking out all the best figures from a display and leaving the common stuff for everybody.  When I get random figures, I get random figures!  If I want a specific one, I'll buy that specific one from an eBay seller who buys in bulk, pre-sorts the figures based on codes, and then honestly sells the rarer ones and indicates that rares have already been picked out from the remainder!

Saturday, August 17, 2013

LEGO Star Wars Jabba's Sail Barge 75020 set Review! (2013 version)


Yet another summer 2013 LEGO Star Wars set here, the largest from my LEGO store haul from about 3 weeks ago.  This is a good one.  A really good one.

Mega Bloks Halo UNSC Hornet vs. Covenant Vampire 97123 set Review


My second Summer 2013 Mega Bloks Halo light & sound enhanced vehicle set review, this one primarily set in the Halo Wars world & time, though with some Halo 4 elements as well.

Mega Bloks Halo Last Man Standing Zombie Pack set review


Saw this at my local Target store a little over a week ago and decided to check it out.  Glad I did!  Glow in the dark mini-sized Spartans with plasma swords, heck yeah!

Friday, August 16, 2013

LEGO Star Wars Ewok Village 10236 full Review!


This is it, the huge final LEGO Star Wars set for Summer 2013, the Ewok Village.  Set in the forest moon of Endor in Return of the Jedi, this set has a whopping 1,990 pieces and includes an astounding 17 minifigures.  There's so much to the set, I had no choice but to split the review into two videos:
 In case you missed it, the speed build is still up as well :)

LEGO VIP members can buy this set right now at the LEGO online shop.

Thursday, August 15, 2013

LEGO Star Wars Ewok Village in-hand SPEED BUILD!

In-hand and built, the all-new, 1,990-piece epic Ewok Village from the LEGO Star Wars line! Here's the full build at crazy 120X speed! Review to follow!

JANGBRiCKS VLog & LEGO city update 8/12/2013


Here's another update (from a few days ago) on little bits of progress around my city and in my queue!
I still have this backlog of built sets to film, plus some new stuff coming in over the weekend, but I'm really hoping that by the end of next week I'll be caught up again.  Series 11 minifigs should be out soon, but otherwise I really should have a very long break to allow me to pump out MOC after MOC!  All of my fingers and toes are crossed (even the little ones).

Wednesday, August 14, 2013

LEGO custom Fire Station MOC


Here it is, unveiled at last, my custom LEGO fire department structure that barely fits in my studio photography area :)  To thank you blog viewers for your support, I'm showing it to you all first, well before the general YouTube community gets to see it!
That'll be the last fire-related item I build for quite awhile, I expect, with the possible exceptions of some hydrants or extinguishers.

Mega Bloks missing parts lightning strikes AGAIN

Over the past month of trying out Mega Bloks Halo products I've encountered several minifigures with mismatched, malformed, or missing parts.  Then, when attempting to build the $100 Pelican set, I found I was shorted 147 pieces.  I methodically filled out the missing parts request form and moved on to another set.  That one was incomplete as well.  I filled out ye olde form again, and I should have taken more serious notice of the difference in sequential confirmation ID numbers I received between the two.  In a matter of a couple of hours, it increased by 29.  That means 28 other people had submitted requests for replacement or missing parts in that short of a period of time.

Today I successfully built another MB Halo set, then moved on to yet another, and guess what?  Two missing parts in this one as well.  That's now 3 out of 4 sets in a row that could not be completed due to critical missing parts.  That's 3 sets purchased at two different locations, from three different sub-series. 

While typing this here, I received confirmation that my 3rd part request had been approved.  Another 167 such requests were approved since my last one (last night).

This is not bad luck.  This is an epidemic.

You'll be hearing more from me on this topic!

Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Mega Bloks Halo Booster Frame combination model


You've already seen my individual reviews of sets  97131, 97133, and 97170, and now here they all are together in the official combination model!

LEGO Friends Heartlake High set 41005 Review!


Stop! Don't read any further if you don't like LEGO Friends!  If you do like this theme, this is one very nice set that's absolutely jam-packed with details & small features that you can use either within the structure as designed, or separately and in conjunction with other sets!

LEGO custom Tiller Ladder & brush trucks - fire MOCs


At last!  The end of my LEGO fire vehicle MOCs for awhile!  I finished these a couple weeks ago and have been anxiously awaiting an opportunity to slot them into the video queue.  These were two key pieces to finish up my initial fire collection, and the hook & ladder truck was needed to determine the size of the garage on my fire station!

Monday, August 12, 2013

Second Mega Bloks failure in as many sets


After my previous post about the enormous lot of missing parts from my brand new Mega Bloks Halo Pelican, I moved on and built one small other set, and then moved on to a third, the Target-exclusive Blue Series Banshee.  Once again, I didn't get far.  This set is missing one whole engine piece, and has the spaceship parts equivalent of two left legs (and no right one).

Pictured above:  The extra pieces in the Banshee set.  I get that many extras in a fairly small set, but I'm missing two critical parts.  My frustration meter is registering a very high value right now.

Mega Bloks set missing 127 pieces?! Update: No, 147


Yes you read that right.  Friday I started building the big all-new $100 Pelican Gunship set and didn't make it past the first half of the first page of the instructions.  I did not have any simple 1x1 plate pieces, of which there should be 12 in the set.  Frustrated, but determined to proceed, I headed to my completed sets/parts bin and scavenged up just enough pieces from other sets in a close-enough color to proceed.  Two steps later, I found myself in need of a 1x2 plate this time.  No dice once again, but this time there were supposed to be 35 of the item.  That brought things to a full stop.  Apparently there is a full bag of small pieces missing, and after doing a thorough inventory check today, the missing part count came to an eye-popping 127 147.  It's pretty miserable.  This is a huge, exciting set, and I had even taken the time in advance to sort out the 1,100+ randomly-packaged parts into 12 separate trays help with the always-daunting task of finding parts needed at each step.

I went to the Mega Bloks missing parts form online and filled it out.  That process nearly failed as well, as the form began to break the web page, there were so many entries, and I had to type the last line completely blind, with only a few pixels of the final "add" button visible!  I got the thing submitted, though, so hopefully they will be able to help me out as many of you viewers have said they do.

In the meantime, I'll have this big mass of trays of parts laying around collecting dust.  I'll have to scrounge up some more temporary sorting containers from the kitchen to allow me to continue moving forward with other builds!

Count updated 8/24/2013

LEGO Star Wars Homing Spider Droid 75016 set review!


The latest in my series of LEGO Star Wars reviews is a droid set that actually comes with four robotic contraptions, two organic life forms, and one tremendous headache.
To help recover from that disaster, here's a relatively peaceful and predictable bonus video:

Lego Star Wars Duel on Geonosis 75017 set Review!


I have a mixed bag of emotions about this set.  There are some things in it that I really like!  Then again, there are some things that I could completely do without.  As always, my reviews are uncensored and I share both positive and negative points!

Mega Bloks Halo video "flood" begins


As mentioned in the past few updates, I have a lot of Mega Bloks Halo stuff to build and/or open & show, so here are three small things to bump up the momentum:

Sunday, August 11, 2013

LEGO Legends of Chima Eglor's Twin Bike 70007 set Review!


Here's another Legends of Chima set that the US got later than many other countries this year.

Kre-O Micro Changers Transformers combiner: Decepticon Bruticus review


My first Kre-O Micro Changers combination set review, with more still Kre-O reviews to come!  This thing is decepti(con)ively small!

Queue update!

This evening I updated my tally of videos for which all footage is already filmed.  The number is now 25!  That's 25 videos that have already been filmed and are just waiting to be slowly released (so as not to send odd viewers into a massive panic just because I've uploaded more than a few videos in a day and they feel forced to watch them instantly).  Meanwhile, this week I've bought a number of new Summer 2013 Mega Bloks Halo sets, plus a couple more older ones, and I now have 27 videos worth of stuff which has not yet been filmed.  That's after uploading 24 videos to the JANGBRiCKS channel this week.

Soooo, I've made a lot of progress, but I've also cancelled out a lot of that by adding new stuff to the queue!  Meanwhile, I continue to work on small MOCs for my city offline and have also started on concepts for a couple of big ones.  Read on for the updated list of video topics yet to come.

Friday, August 9, 2013

LEGO Star Wars 75021 Republic Gunship set Review!


You've asked for more Star Wars.  I'm givin' ya more Star Wars!  Big Summer 2013 ship set this time to kick off the weekend early!

Mega Bloks Halo Night Ops Gausshog 97134 set Review!


Sweet, another new Summer 2013 Mega Bloks Halo set I found at my local Toys R Us, and it's a good one!
Here's a little unrelated "micro" bonus from my backlog, too:

Thursday, August 8, 2013

LEGO Star Wars Z-95 Headhunter set 75004 Review!


Yet another LEGO Star Wars review for y'all!  Not the very newest release, but still a current and relevant set.

LEGO custom metroliner/Amtrak train diner car


Not a particularly special or impressive MOC, this little train car is, but it makes me happy anyhow :)  This was built mostly from spare parts left over from converting my original Metroliner passenger car into a baggage car.  I took the latter's two doors out and added in a "new" old gray base from a Bricklink haul.

LEGO Chima Speedorz 70114 Sky Joust set Review!


Yet another Legends of Chima Speedorz set review here, this time a twofer featuring Eris the eagle and Rawzom the raven.

Wednesday, August 7, 2013

LEGO Star Wars JEK-14's Stealth Starfighter 75018 set Review!


Here's a 2013 LEGO Star Wars ship set with some interesting new minifigures, all derived from the Yoda Chronicles mini-series.

LEGO Chima Speedorz 70108 Royal Roost set Review!


Here's another of the newer Summer 2013 Legends of Chima Speedorz sets, this time featuring Lagravis, king of the Lion Tribe, in his cheapest & most accessible set by far!

Hero Factory black brain bug promo extended


Remember the brain bug promotion?  It wasn't that long ago.  Either LEGO didn't sell nearly as many HF sets as expected in the July promo as expected (which is what I've personally heard), or sales increased enough with the promo that they decided to do it again.  Well, this time, there's no indicated time limit, so if you missed the bug the first time, you're back in luck! Click through the banner below and you will keep this blog and my YouTube channel going!

Construct your Hero and help stop the Brain Attack with new LEGO Hero Factory Sets!

This promotion also stacks with the free Galaxy Squad Mini-Mech with >$50 US orders until Aug. 16th and free ice cream stand with any Friends order all month.